Dr. Thaddeus "Rusty" Venture
Dr. Thaddeus S. "Rusty" Venture is one of the main characters on the Adult Swim show The Venture Bros., and mocks such adventuring scientists like Dr. Benton Quest and Doc Savage. He is voiced by James Urbaniak. Personality and relationships Dr. Venture is perhaps the central character on the show, as most everything revolves around him and something or someone affiliated with him. He is son of the late, great Jonas Venture, the premiere scientist of his day and leader of the original Team Venture, and although as a child seemed to relish the adventuring life, in his current middle-age now despises it and constantly cannot live up to the legacy of his father and the expectations the world had for him. He hallucinates his father at times; and, in a manner both amusing and depressing at the same time, argues with these mirages yet still manages to be one-upped by them ("Careers in Science"). In addition to the original Team Venture, Jonas and Thaddeus had several other affiliations, such as Jonas's bodyguard, the middleweight boxing champ Swifty, and Thaddeus's friend Hector, a young Mexican boy. He has fired both of these men recently from their jobs in Venture Industries they have had for years despite only recently re-learning of their existence ("Powerless in the Face of Death)". Thaddeus now has two sons of his own, named Hank and Dean. He seems to have an almost non-existent relationship with them at times, due to their generally annoying tendecies and his absolute lack of parenting skills, he relies on Brock to keep them out of trouble and alive at times. Due to their tendecy to die every so often, he has developed 'clone slugs' that will grow back the boys' bodies and uses their audio-suggestive aids in their beds to record their memories nightly. Despite his ridiculing and negligence of them, he does seem to actually love the boys at heart; that he keeps re-cloning them and has not yet cashed in on the scientific bankroll cloning would bring is notable, and once tried to protect Hank from possibly being shot by Richard Impossible ("Ice Station -- Impossible!"). Though they have sometimes died in laughable ways, their deaths can hit him hard, as witnessed in "Powerless in the Face of Death". He has a bodyguard, Brock Samson. He attempts to be hip and competent to impress Brock, which usually fails ("Mid-Life Chrysalis"). Despite this he and Brock have an amicable enough relationship, and Brock to his credit has stayed very loyal to Dr. Venture and his assigned task of protecting him from any and all harm - and the Doctor seems to find him emotionally comforting as well. Thaddeus also has friendships with two old college-era friends, Dr. Peter White and Master Billy Quizboy, whom he occasionally turns to for help, although another man introduced to him in college, Baron Werner Ünderbheit, considers him an enemy due to a lab accident Dr. Venture caused that resulted in Ünderbheit's lower jaw being lost. Dr. Venture's archenemy is The Monarch, yet he was so unimportant to Dr. Venture he never even mentions the Monarch at home ("Dia de Los Dangerous!"). The Monarch attempts to destroy Dr. Venture's life but is hilariously incompetent, Dr. Venture considers him more a nuisance than an actual threat (the Monarch replies "but it's what I do! That's my THING!" when Dr. Venture complains the Monarch is always aggravating him). His inventions tend to be re-inventions and inferior versions of what his father built, and he abuses illegal stimulants, which he calls 'diet pills', to keep himself going. He even embarrasingly exhibits male lactation during moments of extreme stress. Dr. Venture, in short, is a man whose childhood was unstable and unpredictable, has never been able to live up to the expectations of himself and others, and is now a bitter, washed-up, and burnt-out man. He has moments of insight and compassion, and even charm and wit, but these are few and far between, as he often falls back into cynicism and self-pity. He seems to maintain his adventuring life because he seemingly has nothing else going for him. Character history Thaddeus S. Venture was born to Dr. Jonas Venture and an unnamed mother, yet he was not meant to be an only child-he swallowed his twin brother in the womb. Nicknamed 'Rusty', Thaddeus accompanied his father and Team Venture as a cute mascot of sorts on many exciting adventures and discoveries and seemed to be a very bright, eager, precocious child. His fame also inspired merchandise based on him, and all the children of his time wanted to be him and live out his adventurous life. In response to his son's pubescent attack of testicular torsion, Jonas convinced The Guild of Calamitous Intent to enact 'Rusty's Law', an addendum to their official rules that stated hostages with genuine medical emergencies must be temporarily released for treatment. Jonas also implanted a tracking device into one of Rusty's molars to help locate him after his frequent kidnappings (once a fortnight, according to original Team Venture member Colonel Horace Gentleman). By college-age years Thaddeus had grown into a rather opposite picture of his father: thin, somewhat shorter than average, and already balding. He no longer liked being called Rusty and still does not, and he attempted to get away from his father's influence, despite this, his father never stopped loving him. During these years he met up with Peter White, Werner Ünderbheit, Mike Sorayama, the Monarch, and most inexplicably his dorm roommate was none other than Brock Samson (a freshman and slightly younger than Dr. Venture), although they never actually met until one night when Brock had accidentally killed a football quarterback and burst into the room containing Venture, White, Sorayama, and Ünderbheit playing a Dungeons & Dragons game. In a fit of drunken rage, he savagely beat the quartet and the next day was forced to leave college, but casually told Thaddeus he received a call that his father had died. At some point soon afterwards, Venture dropped out of college; therefore, Venture technically does not have the right to call himself a doctor. He lost his virginity at the age of twenty-four and more or less seemed to take over running Venture Industries in the same rough timespan, at least insomuch 'running' means 'running into the ground'. At some point in his life in a 'moment of passion' he seemed to have gotten sons somehow, as Hank and Dean were also born sometime during this period, and Dr. Venture developed a method of cloning to bring them back due to their being death-prone (he seems to have forgotten their precise ages, Hank notices his ID is wrong when the Doctor comments it's their sixteenth birthday, though in that instance, the date is most likely wrong due to frequent clonings). Since then, Dr. Venture has settled into mostly making inventions for quick cash and government contracts, although his corner-cutting and laziness ensure these tend to go awry and that he will never escape his father's shadow. He still manages to get plenty of adventuring and action in life, frequently not by choice, such as having both his kidneys removed in Tijuana, [[Careers in Science|being forced to fix the Gargantua-1 spacestation his father developed]], attempting to directly cash in on his father by searching underseas for an experimental airplane Jonas invented, various plots of the Monarch like attempting to kidnap his sons, being turned into a giant caterpillar, and being captured in the Amazon rainforest. Despite all of this he mostly seems content to sit back and relax when possible, which is precisely what he did during the surgery Dean had for his testicular torsion. The most significant thing to happen to Dr. Venture in the recent past was his discovery that a large tumor was actually his twin brother he swallowed in the womb still alive, having grown inside him all this time and the source of all his nightmares on two fetuses fighting one another. This infant built himself up a robot body and attempted fratricide against Thaddeus. Having learned all his tricks, the brother seemed ready to kill Thaddeus, but a last-minute save by Brock and a flying car defeated the sibling. The brother was then granted mercy and decided to call himself Jonas Venture Jr. Since then, Jonas has been granted about half the Venture fortune and has adapted to being the success Thaddeus never was (not to mention a lot more friendly to Thaddeus than vice-versa). A teleporter Jonas mentioned was half-finished accidentally split Dr. Venture into three parts due to Thaddeus deciding it looked good enough to use as-is. Equipment and abilities Dr. Venture is proprietor of Venture Industries, having inherited it from his father, the large lab and base it provides allows him the resources he needs to pursue experiments and inventions. Despite this he mostly still depends on his father's developments; such as the robotic nanny H.E.L.P.eR. and the plane X-1, which can transport Team Venture to anyplace they wish in no time flat. Also worth mentioning is the boat, the X-2. It is worth mentioning he always carries with him a number of 'diet pills' and has an addiction to them. He once told his children these were "Daddy's special aspirin" while Pete White referred to them as "mother's little helpers". Richard Impossible implied that Venture is an amphetamine addict. Despite his shoddiness, impatience, self-absorption, and knack for cutting corners, Dr. Venture can still safely be considered a super-scientist, if only because he has a much better understanding of science, physics, and the various fantastic elements and objects seen in the show than most other characters have. Unlike his brother, however, he lacks the ingenuity to create new inventions and his lack of business skill has reduced Venture to selling his father's old inventions. He has also been shown to be able to: *Repair H.E.L.P.eR. on numerous occasions, and even convert the robot into a dialysis machine. *Develop a cure for the Goliath Serum (with the help of Pete White and Billy Quizboy, although the "cure" was nothing more than ranch dressing,according to Professor Richard Impossible). *Build a capable but highly dangerous home defense robot. *Build a panic room accessed by escape tubes under the beds of himself and the boys. *Create a virtual reality environment called the "Joy Can," capable of manifesting the user's deepest desires. *Establish an elaborate system serving to constantly store the memories of his two sons for later implantation in new clone bodies. (This may have been designed by his father, however.) It seems that while Thaddeus inherited some of his father's genius, he is held back by his aversion to putting in hard work or creating objects that have any useful purpose. Venture, Thaddeus Venture, Thaddeus